The present invention relates to data storage systems, and more particularly, this invention relates to increasing the life of drives.
In magnetic storage systems, magnetic transducers read data from and write data onto magnetic recording media. Data is written on the magnetic recording media by moving a magnetic recording transducer to a position over the media where the data is to be stored. The magnetic recording transducer then generates a magnetic field, which encodes the data into the magnetic media. Data is read from the media by similarly positioning the magnetic read transducer and then sensing the magnetic field of the magnetic media. Read and write operations may be independently synchronized with the movement of the media to ensure that the data can be read from and written to the desired location on the media.
An important and continuing goal in the data storage industry is that of increasing the density of data stored on a medium. For tape storage systems, that goal has led to increasing the track and linear bit density on recording tape, and decreasing the thickness of the magnetic tape medium. However, the development of small footprint, higher performance tape drive systems has created various problems in the design of a tape head assembly for use in such systems.
The usage patterns of tape drives and libraries may vary greatly from customer to customer. Some customers use the tape drive to write to a new tape cartridge once and then store the cartridge (e.g. a green media usage model). Other customers prefer to constantly rewrite and reuse tape cartridges (e.g. a long length durability (LLD) usage model). Still other customers prefer to append multiple small packets of data to a tape cartridge (e.g. a constant append model). Data center environments may be dramatically different from data center to data center. Tape media users additionally have many vendor options to choose from for media and/or cleaning tapes. A standardized set of tape drive operation rules and/or specifications may not meet the needs of all these various usage models and may result in higher rates of drive returns, repairs, and/or warranty claims.